Behavior of Yearling Cattle on Eastern
Oregon Range’
FORREST
Range
Research
Service,
Scientist,
Crops
U.S. Department
A. SNEVA2
Research
Division,
Agricultural
of Agriculture,
Burns,
Oregon
Research
Highlight
Brahman X Hereford and Hereford yearling steers, grazing a sagebrushbunchgrass range in eastern Oregon, displayed a distinct early morning, late
evening, and a variable midday g-razing pattern. Bedding occurred after 9 pm
and little or no grazing activity was observed between that time and daybreak.
The distribution of activity by these yearling steers during the grazing day
was similar to that of cows grazing semi-arid ranges as reported by others.
Three-fourths of the total travel time but only 20% of the total grazing time
occurred around the time of watering.
Man’s attention to the behavior
of cattle while on pasture resulted
in the beginning of rotation grazing
to Johnstonesystems, according
Wallace and Kennedy (1944) who
searched the early European literature and that published later by
Americans.
Behavior studies had
their beginning
in the United
States when Shepperd (1921) recorded the activity of steers on pastures in the Northern Great Plains.
Since then studies have been conducted on Eastern pastures (Hein,
1925; and Johnstone-Wallace
and
Kennedy,
1944) ; on Mid-western
pasture (Atkeson et al., 1942) and
prairie
(Weaver
and Tomanek,
195 1; Moorefield
and Hopkins,
195 1; Peterson and Woolfolk, 1955;
and Dwyer, 1961); on Southwestern rangeland (Cory, 1927; Culley,
1938; Box et al., 1965; Herbel and
Nelson, 1966); and on California
annual range (Wagnon, 1963).
lcontribution
from the Squaw Butte
Experiment Station, Burns, Oregon.
This Station is financed cooperatively
by the Crops Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Deand the
partment
of Agriculture
Oregon State University Agricultural
Experiment Station, Corvallis, Oregon.
Oregon State University Technical
Paper No. 2624. Received June 2,
1969; accepted for publication August
4, 1969.
2 The author gratefully acknowledges
Dr. Farris Hubbert (deceased) who
originated, directed, and summarized
the study from which the data are extracted.
A research project led by Farris
Hubbert at the Squaw Butte Experiment Station in 1951-52 compared the performance of Brahman
x Hereford and Hereford yearlings.
Their behavior while on sagebrushbunchgrass summer range was included as a part of the project but
was only briefly mentioned in the
final report, Hubbert et al. (1955).
I reexamined the data to gain
insight into the behavior of yearling animals on our range. In particular I desired to know the time
of watering, frequency of watering,
and the traveling time associated
with these occurrences. This paper
presents those findings and summarizes other attributes of these
yearlings as found by Hubbert.
Experimental
Material
Procedures
and
Technicians
observed the behavior of a single steer from each
animal group in May, June, July,
and August in each year. A typical
observation
period was normally
four consecutive days; a crossbred
steer was observed for 2 days and
a Hereford steer observed for 2
days. A different steer for each
period was selected by random and
a neck bell attached to the selected
animal to facilitate night observations. Forty head in 1951 and 28
head in 1952, equally divided by
breed and sex, grazed on the same
pastures in common.
Activity of the steers was re155
corded every 15 minutes in one of
the following categories: grazing,
travel when not grazing, drinking,
salt licking, standing, and lying
down. The steer’s position was
plotted on a detailed map, and
the total distance traveled was computed. They also recorded, at each
15-minute interval, the wind direction, percent sky overcast, and presence or absence of precipitation.
Precipitation
amount, relative humidity, and temperature were recorded at the Station headquarters.
The yearlings grazed in pastures
of approximately
2,000 acres; the
maximum distance from water was
3% miles. Crushed salt and a saltbonemeal mix were close to water
and available at all times.
Around-the-clock
observation of
these animals prior to the commencement of the study revealed
that little or no grazing activity
took place between the time the
yearlings bedded at night and the
time they arose in the morning.
Thus, observations in any one day
began at the initiation of grazing
in the morning
and terminated
when the animal bedded down.
This period constitutes the “grazing day.”
Results
Calendar date of the observation
period within each month and
mean day temperature between 9
AM and 5 PM for each period is
shown in Table 1. A trace of precipitation was observed on June 18,
1952 and a light drizzle of 3- to 4hour duration was recorded at midday June 20, 1952.
The
distances
traveled,
time
spent traveling (not grazing), and
time spent grazing per day by
breed for each observation period
within years is tabulated in Tables
2 and 3. Figure 1 shows the percent of time spent grazing within
each hour of the grazing day in 4
observation periods in 1951 and
1952.
Very little time was expended in
drinking water, the most in any
day being 17 minutes. Only on 1
day in 1951, and 2 days in 1952,
did the yearlings fail to drink in
156
SNEVA
Table 1. Calendar
dates and mean
period in 1951 and 1952.
day temperatures
(“F)
of each
1952
1951
Period
Date
1
5/24-5130
2
3
4
5
S/19-6/22
7/17-7120
S/14-8/18
observation
Temp
Date
Temp
69
5/ 17-5/30
6/ 17-6/20
7/E-7/18
S/5-8/8
60
72
83
84
-
70
81
82
73
8/26-8129
Table 2. Summary
of average distance (miles) traveled,
average time (hours)
spent traveling
(not grazing),
and average
time spent grazing
per day
during eight 24-hour observation
periods by Hereford
and Brahman
)( Hereford steers during
1951.
Herefords
Braham x Herefords
Period
observed
Distance
traveled
Travel
time
Grazing
time
Distance
traveled
Travel
time
Grazing
time
1
2
3
4.8
4.8
4.2
0.46
1.50
0.85
5.7
3.1
3.4
0.55
0.38
0.65
10.7
10.7
8.3
4
5.3
2.00
9.7
8.7
8.4
9.2
3.2
0.70
7.5
Avg.
4.8
1.20
9.0
3.8
0.57
9.3
Table 3. Summary
of average distance (miles) traveled,
average time (hours)
spent traveling
(not prazing),
and average time spent grazing per day during
twenty 24-hour observation
periods by Hereford
and Brahman
X Hereford
steers during
1952.
Brahman
Herefords
x Herefords
Period
Distance
traveled
Travel
time
Grazing
time
Distance
traveled
Travel
time
Grazing
time
1
2
3
4
5
5.1
4.2
6.6
3.1
4.0
0.86
0.29
0.43
0.13
0.38
10.5
9.6
10.4
10.5
11.3
8.0
6.8
5.0
5.0
5.2
1.35
0.88
0.18
0.34
0.41
8.8
9.4
8.8
10.2
10.7
Avg.
4.6
0.42
10.4
6.0
0.63
9.6
a 24-hour period. The steers drank
water 1.9 and 1.6 times per day,
respectively in 1951 and 1952. The
times of drinking
varied; 30% occurred between 6 AM and 12 noon,
53% from noon to 4 PM, and the
remaining
times between 4 PM and
8 PM.
In the hour before the drinking
hour 47% of the time was spent
in grazing and 25% in traveling.
Grazing and traveling time during
the hour
of drinking
each
accounted for 35% of the time spent.
Grazing time increased
to 44% in
the hour after the drinking
hour;
travel time decreased to 11%. Although
a large portion
(75%) of
the day’s travel time occurred
in
this 3-hour period around watering,
only a small portion
(20%) of the
grazing took place in the same 3
hours.
In 1951 animals
took salt in 5
days of the 16; but in 1952 this increased to 11 days out of 20. The
animals
took salt most often immediately
prior to or immediately
after watering.
Twenty-five
minutes was the longest time spent in
taking salt.
Beginning
at daybreak the steers
grazed for a period of approximately 5 hours (Fig. 1). In the following 7 hours, grazing was variable with no established
pattern.
Grazing began again in late afternoon and continued without interruption
until dark when the animals began to bed down.
Once
bedded
these animals
tended
to
remain lying down until daybreak.
The steers grazed 40% of the 24hour day, or 53% of the grazing
day.
Discussion
Hubbert
et al. (1955)
found
greater
differences
within
breeds
than
between
breeds;
thus,
the
breed differences
shown in Tables
1 and 2 are not statistically
significant.
Yearling steers grazing sagebrushbunchgrass
ranges
differed
very
little in their pattern of daylight
activity from that of cows observed
semi-arid
ranges
elsewhere
on
(Cory, 1927; Wagnon,
1963; Dwyer,
1961; Weaver and Tomanek,
1951;
and Moorefield and Hopkins, 195 1).
Bedding down for the night occurred after 9 PM. This was 1 to
2 hours later than that recorded
from most other studies. A possible
source for explaining
such differences may be the time standard
used. The time of sunrise recorded
in field notes of this study indicate
that the time standard
used was
Pacific Daylight Saving Time. Once
bedded, the steers seldom arose to
graze until daylight.
This differs
from published reports and may be
due to the class of animal being
observed.
The mean number of times the
animals
watered
per days agrees
with
that reported
by Wagnon
(1963) and Box et al. (1965).
The
taking
of salt occurred
less frequently in this study than that reported by Box et al. (1965), Dwyer
(196 l), and Wag-non (1963).
This
difference
may be due to the form
of salt offered, the class of animal
being observed or salt content
of
the forage.
Hereford
steers traveled
about
the same distance in each year. The
distance
traveled
falls within the
CATTLE
BEHAVIOR
157
close as that reported by Dwyer
(1961).
These data, though coming from
the behavior of yearling steers,
are believed applicable as well to
heifers. I base this upon the lack
of field notation indicating
that
the observed animal behaved differently from those in the group
with which it was a part.
Literature
4a.m.
noon
8 am.
Time
4 P.m.
8 p.m.
of Day
FIG. 1. Percent of time spent grazing within each hour of the grazing day by yearling
steers.
4 to 5 mile range that Herbel and
Nelson
(1966) suggested as the
upper limit for this breed. Crossbred steers traveled 6 miles per day
in the wet summer of 1952 but
only 3.8 miles in 1951, a much dryer
summer.
Midday grazing was not closely
related to simple mean day-temperature.
The steers spent somewhat more time grazing in midday
early in the grazing season than
later when day-temperature
increased. This relation was not as
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